Best Free Technical Support Site

Introduction

When compiling this list I only looked at free third-party support sites. If you are looking specifically for vendor support sites, then click here. You might also try looking for the vendor site on Facebook.

Most of the sites in this category have volunteer staffing and that means the quality of answers to your questions can very widely—it all depends on the individual you get. So don't take the following site rankings too literally as your experience may well differ from mine.

This is a revision of an article by Gizmo and retains much of his material. - v.laurie

Other Recommended Sites

AskMeHelpDesk is a Web site that pairs experts and novices to answer and ask questions. There are hundreds of topics, including many computer-related ones. The computer sections are quite active and I got answers to our test questions within a few hours. Take the strain off your help desk and get your users to check out this excellent free resource.

Techie 7 (formerly D-A-L Computer Help) This a forum based Windows help service. It's quite active with responses to questions often posted within a few hours. The "Spyware, Adware, Viruses and HijackThis Logs" section is particularly active and the answers posted both helpful and sound. The "Hand Held" and "Web Design" sections are currently a bit thin but that does not distract from the overall excellence of this free site for general Windows support. Registration is required to post a question but this is a simple and speedy procedure. Well worth trying.

Suggest A Fix This is a free forum where users can post problems in the hope that another forum member can help. The available forums cover operating systems, general computing, the Internet and security with many subdivisions under each category.

The forums are not the busiest we've seen but almost all questions attract good quality answers. Our 3 test questions were answered very promptly indeed the solutions provided and were of high quality.

Like many other forums, a few dedicated individuals seem to provide the bulk of the answers so you might find the quality of the answers varying day to day according to who's available. This reservation notwithstanding, we couldn't fault the service we received.

About Guide on PC Support Here you'll find an excellent portal site for all PC support issues. The information presented is thorough and comprehensive. They have a forum area where, after registration, you can post messages to other users free of charge. It's not a particularly active forum, with only a dozen or so messages a day, so you may have to wait a while for a response. We did however, get answers to our problems and the correct answers at that.

Virtual Dr This site forms just part of the huge Internet.com group of sites. They offer a pretty good set of online resources plus a well-used forum area where you can pose questions to fellow users. Registration is required but is free.

Computing.net Not tested by this editor but recommended by another editor.

For complex Microsoft Windows problems, like the dreaded Blue Screens of Death (BSOD), Windows Update failures, SFC scans failing to fix, malware problems and a lot more, the folks at Sysnative go out of their way to dig deep and get things straightened out - that's if they haven't already built a tool to do the job for you!

Highly recommended and probably the most professional team out there.

[Disclosure] I'm listed as a Staff member there.

I know that the active Staff there blow me into the weeds, I leave it to them, they're simply in a different league.

Thank you Vic.
Another site to consider is PCWorld. I recently had to repair my corrupt Windows 7 installation. Not only did the article provide detailed instructions, with screenshots, it proivided detailed instructions on what to do prior to repairing Windows 7.
I also checked the site with VirusTotal and it's 100% clean.

I run windows vista on a PC with a common access card reader to access a government email account when I am traveling. It normally works. However, I am never able to view any encrypted emails. I know that I need to download SMIME but I have not been able to do so successfully. Do you have any recommendations?

I have often found major geeks come up on searches. Just wondering why it isn't mentioned in this review. Is it no longer a major player [or was it never one in the first place], or have they gone downhill in some way?

That's where I get all my hardware advice, particularly for motherboards, PSU's, and HDD/SDD's. They don't answer software questions very swiftly if at all. It' mainly a builder's forum, I'd say. I got excellent advice on parts for my new (cheap!) build and it has run without hitch for 2 years now.

This list of help sites is a fantastic thing for someone like me who is not that savvy about computers. I had several questions I needed answered Tech support guy were very good and solved all my little problems . Again thanks so much for the list of sites

speaking from lots of experience with such sites, unfortunately (as with so many other things in life) nothing is the quality it used to be when the world was:
"young & gay".

Now many of the original enthusiasts are:
"old & gray" - and world wary

so accordingly, the support venues which used to provide crystal-clear answers, have now degenerated to the Nth degree.

The best litmus test (if you have time) is to search for some common problems which keep cropping up in Windows. Then print the threads from the early 2000's and compare them side by side with the same topics asked in the current decade.

If you analyze them, you'll realize how abysmally the quality of answers have taken a downhill slide.
And no, I don't just mean grammar.
I'm talking about leading people down the wrong path, even for the simplest situations, let alone the majority of those which require a detective to solve.

Basically, it's as if tiny kids are mostly at the helm on some of these forums, with just a sprinkling of mature people, who might actually HELP (if you'd only have the luck to get them) rather than giving lectures about double postings (which you sometimes resort to when you realize you're stuck with the usual imbeciles instead of real guidance). Then most of your psyche is wrung-dry trying to wring out diplomatic courteous explanations - when you really feel like crying & shouting in frustration at their worsening your situation instead of improving it.

I can't begin to say how many times the above scenario has happened to me over the last decade, and snowballing over the latter 1/2 of the decade.

P.S. the same backsliding happened with free hosts (such as freewebs) and with free email (such as gmail & yahoomail). They all used to have clean, basic, EZ interfaces which were glitch-free. Then free-hosts became too slow & needlessly-sophisticated, imposing banners & popups ad nauseum. And free gmail/yahoomail deteriorated their interfaces, and proceeded screwing in the screws, with diabolical privacy invasions. As one guy has posted, Google is now officially GoogEVIL.

I have been having difficulties with my wireless card. It has stopped showing available networks. I have checked the router to make sure it is broadcasting the SSID and it is. Diagnostics and control panel do not show any errors or conflicts. I am forced to use connect a cat 5 cable from my router to get on the internet. I am looking for suggestions in order to connect to my internet at home and in public via wireless.

The article was indeed very helpful and with the exception of the last line in the second paragraph in the review of 5 Star Support, where you stated "Receive more an answer from more than one volunteer," But apparently ment to say "Recieve answers from more than one volunteer," it was quite well written. Thank you!